(Reuters) -
Rasanath Das, an ex-investment banker turned Hindu monk, was spending recent
Sunday afternoons leading Occupy Wall Street protesters in meditation until
police cleared their camp at New York's Zuccotti Park this week.
The
32-year-old monk isn't sure now where his next session will be. He'll keep
following the protesters to lead meditation, though, convinced they will only
roll back the inequality around them if they find equanimity deep inside.
"Anger
won't solve anything," he told Reuters. "We have to work from the
heart ... there is so much distrust now."
Das has
been a discreet presence at the protests, leading short sessions before making
way for other religious leaders to preach at a weekly interfaith service. What
he doesn't tell is the unlikely story of how he ended up in Lower Manhattan.
A native of
Mumbai, Das studied at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and moved to
the United States in 2000 to work as a consultant with the accounting firm
Deloitte.
After
earning a masters of business administration (MBA) at Cornell, he started at
Bank of America in 2006.
His
specialty was the technology, media and telecoms sector and he dealt in
so-called structured products, including mortgage-backed securities --
"the things that blew up, the toxic products" as he put it in a
telephone interview.
Das had
studied this market but remained baffled by it even after he began trading.
"I saw people I considered much smarter than I was, and they really believed
in them, so I didn't open my mouth," he said.
"MUSICAL
CHAIRS"
As world
markets began to crumble in 2007, a superior told him: "You have to
realize this is a game of musical chairs . when the music stops, the person or
bank that has the assets sitting on his books loses."
"The
far-reaching consequences for the economy were not something he would
foresee," Das said. His doubts grew until, the following year, he found
himself working on a merger and acquisition project for Playboy magazine.
It struck
him as absurd trying to sell sex when the economy was collapsing and people
were losing their jobs. "It was not that I hated the industry or the
people I worked with," he said. "But I began to see the shallowness
in that world. I wanted to be part of something authentic and deep."
In fact,
Das was already linked to that something. Since 2007, he had been living in a
Hindu monastery in Manhattan's East Village. "I was living out of a large
closet, with four suits and button-down shirts," he said.
"I
slept on the floor and lived the life of a monk."
Das had
been practicing karma yoga, the Hindu path of selfless service to the divine,
for a decade before moving into the monastery in 2007. As part of this active
service, he used his $170,000 annual salary to help finance the monastery.
"Living
in a monastery was a very strong safety belt to make sure I kept my inner
core," he explained.
CORPORATE
CHAPLAIN
When he
quit in late 2008, one Bank of America manager praised his courage and another
said he was making the worst mistake of his life. Several colleagues confided
their discontent to him and some also quit, he said.
Das
admitted it was hard to give up the perks and prestige of the investment
banker's life, but it wasn't what he wanted.
"It
was only after joining the monastery that I began to understand the prison of
Wall Street," he said. "I didn't hate those people but I began to
understand what drives them and how much shallowness and suffering is there
inside."
Das has
left Wall Street but not the financial industry. Part of his new work is
speaking at corporate retreats about leadership and self-awareness to help
managers get beyond the greed he sees driving the financial industry.
After a
local newspaper recently profiled him, two high-flyers from the investment bank
Goldman Sachs visited him at the monastery to discuss the financial crisis.
"They're coming back again soon," he said.
Das sees
his work as a kind of corporate chaplain who could help build character in
managers and help avoid disastrous decisions made when short-term goals
prevail. More regulation of the financial industry may be needed, but only a
higher consciousness will help in the long term, he said.
Asked if
protesters and profiteers could develop this higher consciousness, he said:
"I keep my expectations low but at the same time I keep my enthusiasm
high.
"I've
met so many people who want to make a change. To me, that's very
inspiring."
(Reporting By Tom Heneghan)
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Rasanath
Das, in blue sweater, in a group meditation Wednesday
at Occupy Wall Street in
Zuccotti Park. (Philip Montgomery
for The Wall Street Journal)
|
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